How To Create a Usable Index — Interview with John McGhie
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Duration: 36 min.
John McGhie, technical writer and Microsoft MVP from Sydney, Australia, explains how to create a usable index for your help material.
In this interview, John covers the following topics:
- Deciding whether to create an index
- Skills required to create an index
- Steps in creating an index
- Audience considerations in creating an index
- Time required for creating an index
- Pitfalls writers face when creating an index
- Myths of the concordance file method for creating indexes
- Strategies for entries and subentries
- Methods for updating an index
- Determining whether your index is usable
For additional information, see the following:
- John McGhie's bio
- John's helpful article on indexing that I mention in the podcast
- The Word MVP home page
** To contact John, you can e-mail him at john@mcghie.name.